30min

575: (25/365) A Cautionary Tale (Part 3)

| wonko

Look away, look away … we are going to need a bigger boat:

Interestingly, people’s opinions of sharks in Australia, particularly by those who do not live here, varies from reality markedly. One would believe, if one believed what you see in the media, that sharks are a problem, everyone gets attacked – this is far from the truth.

Although this is a stereotypical tale of woe, I was interested in the folding sequence as each of the tree parts use different bases, wildly different techniques initially and yet there is consistency when you get to the final shaping. Continue reading →

573: (23/365) A Cautionary Tale (Part 1)

| wonko

It is a beautiful day, waters clear, the water beckons, it would be wrong not to go for a swim. You put your toe in, the water is lovely, swimming gives you a new found freedom:

This is part 1 of a 3 part story – what could possibly go wrong- we rarely see the danger, far off in the distance, and why would we consider it, we are ok, nothing could go wrong. Continue reading →

565: (15/365) Golden Carp

| wonko

Leafing through “Folding Australia 2016”, the Sydney Origami Society Convention book (in which I have a model published :)) I came across a cute little carp designed by Mindaugas Cesnavicius:

An ingenious design based on the pony base that teases lovely eyes and mouth, fins and a tail while managing the colour changes beautifully. Continue reading →

563: (13/365) Jacky Chan’s Little Chinese Mammon

| wonko

Paper dolls are big in Chinese and Japanese culture, this little charmer is a two-piece model from Jacky Chan:

Head and body are folded separately from the same size bits of paper and then the head neatly slots into the shoulders of the body.

When folding this I started with the head and was convinced that the body square would never be big enough to make something that worked with the head but it worked out fine.

Lovely traditional headdress, robes, proportions and self-standing. Happy with this first fold, I can see how you would pose this little guy in other positions, bling it up with fans and walking stick etc.

561: (11/365) Robert Lang’s Minamimachi Butterfly

| wonko

I must admit to not having folded many butterflies – not sure why, hopefully this year I will remedy this situation:

This is Robert Lang’s Minamimachi Butterfly – I know it looks simple but there are some wonderfully complex techniques in it’s fabrication. Continue reading →

539: Triple Tsuru

| wonko

Continuing my exploration of Hiden Senbazuru Orikata (The Secret of One Thousand Cranes Origami), published in 1797 I managed to wrangle a triple Tsuru:539TriTsuru

The original schematic suggests that you use 2 small squares attached to the wings of the larger square, and I cannot fathom whether the dotted lines mean “remove” the unused paper or “hide” it. I chose to hide it.triTsuru

We end up with parent and 2 kids, joined at the wings. The actual folding is fairly fiddly and the paper hiding makes the head/tail of the parent very thick (or was it the paper I chose?) Continue reading →

538: Sock and Buskin

| wonko

After some fiddling, and diagramming (hopefully for the Sydney Folders Convention book) I am happy with the component parts of this original model:SockAndBuskin

The sock and buskin are two ancient symbols of comedy and tragedy. In Greek theatre, actors in tragic roles wore a boot called a buskin (Latin cothurnus) that elevated them above the other actors. The actors with comedic roles only wore a thin soled shoe called a sock (Latin soccus).

Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, is often depicted holding the tragic mask and wearing buskins. Thalia, the muse of comedy, is similarly associated with the mask of comedy and comic’s socks. Some people refer to the masks themselves as “Sock and Buskin”.

Inspired by face work on Eric Joisel’s Dwarf series, a single piece of paper becomes BOTH comedy and Tragedy – happy with the result.

Have a try with my diagrams: http://www.wonko.info/365origami/wp-content/uploads/SockAndBuskin-PeterWhitehouse_2.pdf

450: Montroll’s Hippopotatomus

| wonko

It is a little recognised fact that the animal that has killed the most people in Africa is in fact the Hippopotamus:

I stumbled across this delightful model while leafing through “African Animals in Origami” – a much worn volume when looking for something to try from my invalid chair.

I had a gold (more correctly bronze) foil square and was wanting to fold something “yoshizawa style” – free form hand-held rather than on table or other flat surface – the challenges with this style are accuracy and precision, the payoffs are often more fluid, softer curves and lively asymmetrical poses.

I like this model, although he reflective paper makes discerning details difficult – she has a wry grin, 2 lovely tusks on her bottom jaw, lovely ears and a fine rump after some 3d modelling.

430: Lang’s Spider Conch

| wonko

Those of you who were guessers for the WTF (What’s That Fold?) #4 will be interested to know that this model was actually a Spider Conch designed by Robert Lang:

I once taught on Palm Island – which is seaward from Townsville, North Queensland. Whilst there I loved to snorkel the reef nearby. Whilst doing so, I managed to find a pair of “spider shells” that I still have today.

Continue reading →

428: Hibiscus Flower

| wonko

My wife and I spent some time in a rainforest cabin – whilst there I folded this week’s WTF#3:

On a tropical theme, I left the model for the cabin owner as a thank you for a lovely time away.

A simple, slightly asymmetric fold that teases an odd number of petals, stamen and stem, cleverly managing the layers so the flower face and stamen would be one colour, stem another if I used duo paper.

I was looking for a simple fold and amongst my Tanteidan magazines I spied this figure, designed by Yamaguchi Makoto – must try it with colourful paper.

No one was able to discern it was even a flower – very disappointing people!

405: No Bull

| wonko

When I first saw pictures of this Bull, I knew I wanted to try to make it:

I love the pose, the power, the majestic playfulness of this, a proud bull.

There are many junctures in this fold where there are no landmarks, you guess places of folds so this, my first fold, is lucky to look even vaguely bull-like. I will fold this model again, I want to try to fold this from memory. Continue reading →

390: Flying wallaby

| wonko

As a travelling Australian, the “flying kangaroo” is something I wish I could afford to travel using, but we are using the the “flying wallaby”:

I decided that trying to memorise a kangaroo fold would be a good idea for an aussie abroad, and what better than the kangaroo by Robert Lang from the book “Origami Zoo”.

On making, then re-making it I am convinced that this model is much more like a wallaby than a roo, but it is a lovely form none the less.

I can now fold this from memory, but it is very dense and requires thin paper else it gets bunchy early. Will practise it and hopefully, leave a stream of them all over Europe.

385: Beer Mug/TeaCup

| wonko

… so I was thinking through a waterproof container, being inspired by a paper cup I dismantled from a water cooler, and came across this design:

Working with an A4 page, and inscribing, via a simple half-third intersection and some simple geometric construction, an octagonal base, sides radiating from it and pleats to tuck away the excess paper, a container was born.

Because the base was centred 1/3 of the way down the page, there was, by design, enough paper to fashion a rather nice handle.

Very happy with this – rare that a design in my head so closely matches what later manifests on paper, and I might get around to diagramming it someday – the basic form however is pretty obvious in retrospect.

By varying the size of the base you get a taller or squatter container. By flaring the radiating sides, the container is more conical than cylindrical – all interesting. Mastering the pleats necessary to make the handle is interesting and as an added bonus the ends tuck away locking in position inside a facet gusset – neat indeed.

I trialled it in clear plastic, scoring the creases with a stylus before reinforcing them – tough going actually as the plastic had memory and continued to try to unfold. Interestingly, the finished article was waterproof and strong enough to be held by the handle while containing water so it is functional as well as pretty beautiful.

I know a gnome that needs this, so the next step was to make one to size and put it in his hands:

Squiffy now has his pint.

358: Pandora’s Box

| wonko

Come this time of year, we ALL engage in a sort of origami, with varying success and neatness – wrapping presents:

This is Yami Yamauchi’s “Pandora’s Box” – a devilishly clever fold that makes a beautiful cube that once folded is near impossible to un-fold.

The instructions suggest fold it part way, put something precious inside and close it up, only to watch the faces of the receiver as they try to open the gift without tearing the paper – lol.

An ingenious box folded from fifths – originally I was going to fold this in white, then remembered some rather splendid stripey wrapping paper and that solved 2 problems with the one roll really as I used the stripes to work out the proportions – 5×3 stripes = fitfhs of a decent size, hooray. There are many geometric constructions for making fifths but they often leave creases in the paper as you make them and I wanted it to be as blemish free as flimsy wrapping paper would allow.

In retrospect, it ended up being almost exactly the size of my Rubics Cube, lovely thing.

354: Should have bought a Squirrel

| wonko

One of my wife’s favourite movies is a comedy called “Rat Race”, the title of today’s model is one of the “morals” of that cautionary tale:

Akira Yoshizawa is credited as being the father of artistic origami – he also invented the diagramming language we all follow now.

This is his squirrel – a lovely 2-part model that uses relatively few folds to reveal the squirrel-nicity of paper beautifully.

There is much to like about this model – lovely face and ears, nice posture and a bushy tail. I also like that most of the folds used judgement rather than landmarks – that way a little of the character of the folder is intrinsically captured in the model making no 2 folds identical.

An ingenious system of locking the 2 parts together is employed – the rear half has pokey-outey parts that are re-folded into the shoulder folds of the front half – nice work Yoshizawa Sensei.